Examining the contribution of brick laying on wetlands degradation :

Abstract

The study was conducted at Lukutwa wetland in Yumbe town council-Yumbe district. Lukutwa wetland is a very important ecosystem with unique ecosystem services supporting a variety of birds, plants and animal species and it is source of water for number of people living around it. This study therefore examines the contribution of brick laying activities on degradation of Lukutwa wetland in Yumbe town council-Yumbe district. Several economic activities take place in the wetland and they include the following; farming, fishing pottery, sand mining and brick laying which is a long time economic activity of most local people living around the wetland. The methodology involved interviews with cross-section of the local people around the wetland and self-administered questionnaires were used to collect primary data this was supplemented with secondary data obtained from literature and other secondary sources like the university library, internet, research papers and others. The results concluded that the wetland is severely degraded by brick laying activities especially through extraction of inputs from the wetland and the study recommended the following; There is need to adequately sensitise and educate the brick layers and local masses surrounding the wetland about the ecosystem values of the wetland and how best they can sustainably use wetland resources so that they can continuously accrue a stream of benefits from ecosystem services arising from having the wetland in its natural state, the brick layers should adopt production of perforated and hollow bricks. This makes it possible for reduction of up to 40% in the material use (Units, 2004) by going for perforated/hollow bricks instead of solid bricks. Brick layers should plant fast growing tree species such as laucaena or Albizia and others in the wetland vegetation depleted areas and also in the pits to provide fuel wood for their future brick production activities and also to green the areas around their brick production units.